Paul Jewell

Paul Jewell (born 28 September 1964) is an English football manager and former player, who was most recently director of football at Swindon Town.

Jewell began his playing career with Liverpool, continued at Wigan Athletic and concluded in a ten-year spell with Bradford City, apart from a short loan spell with Grimsby Town. When his playing career ended, he became part of the coaching staff at Bradford City.

Jewell was appointed manager in 1998 and took City to the Premier League before resigning and becoming manager of Sheffield Wednesday. He returned to Wigan Athletic to win a second promotion to the Premier League, but resigned a day after he kept them up in the 2006–07 season. He later joined Derby County on 28 November 2007, before resigning 13 months later.

He was appointed manager of Ipswich Town in January 2011, but departed following an unsuccessful reign in October 2012. He briefly took up assistant coaching roles at West Brom in 2015 and Oldham Athletic in 2017 before being appointed as director of football at Swindon Town in December 2018. Jewell left Swindon in July 2021.

Playing career

Born in Liverpool, Lancashire (now Merseyside), and educated at De La Salle School, Jewell began his career as an apprentice with home-city club Liverpool.

In December 1984, Jewell moved to Wigan Athletic for £15,000. He made his league debut for Wigan against Rotherham United in a 3–3 draw. He appeared 137 times for Wigan, scoring 35 goals, before moving to Bradford City in an £80,000 deal. Terry Dolan brought Jewell to Valley Parade in June 1988 as part of a re-building exercise after the club failed to win promotion to Division One in 1987–88 and had lost Stuart McCall and John Hendrie to Everton and Newcastle United, respectively. He spent a decade as a player at City scoring 56 league goals in 269 appearances, and forged a successful partnership with Sean McCarthy for four of those seasons. Jewell's most successful spell occurred in 1992–93 when he scored 16 league goals to McCarthy's 17 in the first season of new player-manager Frank Stapleton's tenure.

Jewell had a brief loan spell at Grimsby Town before returning to Bradford. He retired as a player in 1997–98 when Bradford won promotion from Division Two in 1995–96 under manager Chris Kamara.

Managerial career

Bradford City

Jewell started his coaching career long before he retired as a player, joining City's coaching staff during the successful 1995–96 campaign. The following season City came 21st in Division One, avoiding relegation with a 3–0 victory on the final day of the season against Queens Park Rangers. A year later, with 13 points from a possible 15, City were top after five games. However, performances declined from there, and chairman Geoffrey Richmond sacked Kamara on 6 January 1998, three days after a 2–0 FA Cup defeat to Manchester City.

Richmond turned to Jewell, already Kamara's assistant manager, who then won his first game 2–1 to Stockport County. In his 21 games in charge, Jewell won six games and drew five to guide City to 13th, their highest position since Jewell had joined the club. He was rewarded with a permanent contract when others expected Richmond to recruit a higher-profile replacement. Richmond wanted to make a promotion challenge, so Jewell broke the club's transfer record twice within the first week of the 1998–99 season, first with the £1m acquisition of Lee Mills and then the £1.3m purchase of Arsenal youngster Isaiah Rankin. He also brought back Stuart McCall from Rangers. After a poor start, when City won just one of its first seven games, they picked up momentum and were second behind Sunderland for most of the latter half of the season. Jewell added Lee Sharpe on loan and a third £1m signing, Dean Windass, as City held off Ipswich Town and Birmingham City to finish second. With promotion to the Premier League, Bradford had returned to top-flight football after an absence of 77 years.

Bradford struggled in the Premiership during the 1999–2000 season, but their survival was secured on the last day when, against expectations, they beat Liverpool 1–0 at home, a defeat that cost their opponents a UEFA Champions League place. Jewell handed in his notice after Richmond called City's 17th-placed Premiership finish "a disappointment". Richmond refused to accept Jewell's resignation. He contended that Jewell had already lined up a job at Sheffield Wednesday whilst still contracted to City, and placed Jewell on gardening leave. However, Wednesday worked out a compensation package with City, and Jewell was installed as the new manager of the relegated club.

Sheffield Wednesday

Jewell had been hoping to mount a promotion challenge in 2000–01 with Wednesday but after enduring a torrid eight months in charge was sacked in February 2001 with the debt-ridden Hillsborough club struggling near the foot of Division One. His highlight was the 2–1 League Cup victory over local rivals Sheffield United and victory over Premier League club West Ham United.

Wigan Athletic

In June 2001, Jewell made his return to management with ambitious Division Two club Wigan Athletic. In his second season as manager ( 2002–03) the club won the Division Two championship and entered the upper half of the English professional football league system for the first time ever. They were near the top of Division One throughout the 2003–04 season but were pipped to a playoff place on the final day of the season by Crystal Palace—who went on to win the playoffs.

On the final day of the 2004–05 Championship season, Jewell's Athletic side clinched promotion to the Premier League bringing top-flight football to the Lancashire town for the first time. For the 2005–06 season, Jewell's side lost their first game at home to Chelsea via a last-minute winner from Hernán Crespo but won their first match two games later at home to Sunderland. They contested the League Cup final against Manchester United on 26 February 2006 but went down 4–0.

On 11 February 2007 during the aftermath of Wigan's defeat at the hands of Arsenal, Jewell accused referee Phil Dowd

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